1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a portable electronic device, and in particular to using a combination of local and remote storage to enhance the storage capability of the portable device. Still more particularly, the invention relates to using a wireless link to permit a portable electronic device, such as a camera, to offload some or all of its data (e.g., pictures).
2. Background Information
Portable electronics are quickly becoming commonplace in many households. Everything from digital cameras, portable personal computers (“PCs”), portable music players (such as the MP3 player that plays MPEG3 (“Motion Picture Experts Group layer 3”) encoded files), and other devices are decreasing in price so that they are now available to the average consumer. Consumers also demand that in addition to these electronic devices being cheap, they must be capable of performing a variety of tasks and functions.
For example, digital cameras are expected to provide images of comparable quality to traditional cameras, and be able to take at least as many as are pictures available in a standard roll of film (e.g., 24, 36). Picture quality in digital cameras is directly related to the resolution of the picture. Resolution of an image is defined by the number of “pixels” (picture elements) in an image. An image with fewer pixels per square inch (i.e., lower resolution) will not look as sharp as an image of comparable size but with more pixels (i.e., higher resolution). For obvious reasons, consumers desire digital pictures having a high resolution, and resolution at least comparable to that provided with conventional cameras and traditional film. However, increasing the resolution of an image (by increasing the number of pixels per square inch) increases the size of the file of the resulting picture. The images are stored locally in the digital camera's memory, which has finite capacity. Thus, the number of pictures the camera can take is limited by the resolution of the images and the camera's internal memory capacity. Other types of portable electronic devices, such as digital audio players (MP3 players) and dictation systems also share this same problem of limited memory capacity.
The electronics industry has attempted to address this problem by introducing “memory cards”. Most portable electronics now have some sort of memory card that can be removed from the device by the user and replaced by another memory card. This requires the user to purchase additional memory cards, which are device specific and generally quite costly. Users are also required to carry extra memory cards anticipating how much memory they will require. Accordingly, a solution to this problem is needed.